Local swimmer hopes to become 'Phelps of the Middle East' in Rio

Max Bultman joins Chris Perkins to discuss some of the top South Florida athletes to follow at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Max Bultman joins Chris Perkins to discuss some of the top South Florida athletes to follow at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Max BultmanSouth Florida Sun Sentinel

High school crushes are usually fairly benign.

But for Anthony Barbar, who will swim the 50-meter freestyle for Lebanon at the Rio Olympics, one teenage infatuation sparked an entire career.

Watching the 2008 Games before his sophomore year of high school, Barbar was struck by exciting young gymnast Shawn Johnson. At just 16, Johnson took home a gold and three silver medals in Beijing while Barbar admired from afar.

"I was like, 'Well, the only way I'm gonna get to meet her is if I make the Olympics,'" Barbar recalled. "So I was like, 'Well, it's either gymnastics or swimming.'"

Too tall for gymnastics, he figured the pool was his best bet, and he joined the team at Westminster Academy.

Now, eight years later, Barbar is indeed going to the Olympics at age 23.

And while Johnson has since married and retired from international competition, Barbar has his sights set on a different dream. He swims the shortest race in the Olympic program, but he's thinking in the long-term.

Sam Freas III / Courtesy

Anthony Barbar, a former Westminster Academy swimmer from Boca Raton, is competing in the Olympics representing Lebanon.

Anthony Barbar, a former Westminster Academy swimmer from Boca Raton, is competing in the Olympics representing Lebanon.

(Sam Freas III / Courtesy)

"The Middle East is kind of ... it's not really known for swimming," Barbar explained. "So I would love to be the Michael Phelps of the Middle East, so to speak."

While his times aren't near the level of Phelps', his goal to help popularize swimming in Lebanon is a noble one. He admitted there was some tension surrounding his swimming for Lebanon despite growing up in the United States, but he will nonetheless represent the country where his paternal grandparents grew up.

Qualifying for Rio just two years after getting his dual citizenship is a good start.

A look at the athletes in the 2016 Rio Olympics with ties to Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. (Athletes compete for the United States, unless specified.)

(Compiled by Max Bultman)

His father, who is fully Lebanese, had always told the now-6-foot-7 Barbar that he had a swimmer's body. But instead, Barbar dreamed of playing in the NBA. He played center all through high school, but as he discovered back in 2008, his height had advantages in the pool, too.

"I was teaching middle school at the time, but he would come by my classroom every day and we would just talk about swimming and talk about times," Freas said. "He was into figuring out how to get our relays faster and try to do well at the state championships, and he just started enjoying the sport a lot."

Barbar says he didn't even like swimming at first. He remembers going back and forth between the swim and basketball seasons, and he sometimes had trouble balancing the two sports. But he loved to race, so he kept coming back year after year.

"I think it was a disadvantage and an advantage in starting late," Barbar said. "It's like I didn't have the pressure of like training my entire life and then proving myself when I got older. It kind of was a thing [where] I just went out there, I just tried to race my hardest and whatever happened, happened."

As a junior, he anchored Westminster's 200-yard freestyle relay in a second-place finish at the FHSAA state finals. The next year, he was part of the fourth-place relay team at the state finals and missed qualifying for the individual finals of 50-yard freestyle by just four one-hundredths of a second.

After high school, he decided to swim at Oklahoma Baptist University for Dr. Sam Freas — his high school coach's father.

Those four years are the only time in Barbar's life that he has not lived in Boca Raton, where he still trains with the Westminster Academy Swim Club. And even with his late introduction the sport, he is just the second Olympian Freas III can recall coaching at Westminster, joining Jamaica's Jevon Atkinson who competed in 2008.

"Even kids that show so much talent and are really good early on, they burn out and they don't have any desire for it," Freas III said. "They don't get much enjoyment out of it anymore. He picked it up so late and he started enjoying it so much that it kind of kept him motivated."

When Barbar gets to Rio, he'll have long odds ahead of him. He says his personal best in the 50 free is 23.39 seconds, nearly two full seconds slower than France's defending Olympic champion Florent Manaudou.

But for a kid who first got in the pool to chase down a crush, these Olympics aren't just about winning gold.

"I'm just going to go and enjoy my time," said Barbar, who begins competition Thursday. "I've put all the work in, and whatever happens, happens. I'm not really trying to aim for anything specifically in Rio. But a best time would be awesome, and if I make it out of heats, praise God."